


Like A Goddamn Barnacle

by anephemeralmind



Series: Blind Love [4]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Blind Character, M/M, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-25 01:20:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14966021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anephemeralmind/pseuds/anephemeralmind
Summary: Pauline doesn't trust Armie Hammer, and she definitely does not like him. It doesn't matter that he has her entire family fooled, she knows the truth, he's an asshole and a fuckboy. She'll prove it eventually.Or: Pauline's journey to becoming Armie's number one fan.





	Like A Goddamn Barnacle

Her parents deciding to uproot their entire family and move from New York to California was not something Pauline was all too happy about, but at least she would be able to finish up her two year dance degree before they left, it would be worse for Timmy, who’d have to transfer in his senior year of high school. And sure, it’s not like she  _had_  to go with them, she was after all an adult now, but she didn’t really like the thought of being on the opposite side of the country from her entire family, so she went with. Only complaining a little, on her own behalf anyway, but she complained  _a lot_  on Timmy’s behalf, because she knew he’d never do it himself.

Their new house was in a lovely suburban area, and their neighbors seemed nice enough, if a little too stepford-y, they got so many welcome to the neighborhood cookies they struggled to finish them all. The neighbors right across from them though, seemed more than a little stuck up, clearly suffering from I’m better than you-itis, if the way they stood on their front porch wrinkling their noses at the moving vans pulling up in front of Pauline’s house was any indication. But she knew she truly hated them the second they laid eyes on Timmy. When they saw him use his cane to orient himself into the house, and the way the wife grimaced and leaned into her husband to whisper something, how he laughed, nodding his head and agreeing with whatever it was. Yeah, The Hammer's were definitely on her shit list.

Which was further confirmed when the wife later came over, carrying a plate of cookies, every one of them perfectly consistent in size, and golden brown. She’d smiled winningly at Pauline when she’d opened the door, welcoming her and her family to the neighborhood, and for a second Pauline thought maybe she’d misjudged her. Until she opened her mouth and asked if her handicapped brother was around, she’d slammed the door in her face at that comment, throwing the cookies, and the plate they were on, right into the trash. That fucking bitch.

Since she hadn’t found a job yet, it quickly became obvious it was going to be her responsibility to drive Timmy to and from school. She did have ballet lessons every Monday, Wednesday and Friday though, meaning Timmy would be stuck waiting for her at the school library until she finished. But being the kind soul that he is, Timmy didn’t even once complain when she told him, only shrugged saying it would give him ample time to do his homework.

She’s not gonna lie, she was more than a little surprised at getting a text from Timmy on his first day of school, saying that he’d already made a friend and that he was getting a ride home from him, so she didn’t have to worry about picking him up after all. Her surprise wasn’t because Timmy wasn’t worth befriending, it was more because she knew from experience how long it usually took him to make friends, simply because people tended to avoid him purely based on the fact that he was blind, and it made them uncomfortable. She was happy though, that things seemed to be different for him here, he deserved that.

When Brittany, a girl in her ballet class, suggested they’d all go out for dinner after the class, as a welcome to LA dinner for Pauline, she accepted happily, knowing Timmy was already home by now, thanks to his new friend.

 

When she got home, there was a stranger on the couch, and Timmy was cuddled up under his arm, leaning his entire body into him. And her parents sat opposite them, talking like everything was perfectly normal. Like there wasn’t a stranger, sitting right in front of them,  _cuddling_  with her baby brother.

She wrinkles her nose in confusion. “Who’s this?” She asks, startling them all a little, clearly not having heard her coming in, too focused on whatever they’d been talking about. The stranger smiles at her, and she just stares back at him, squinting her eyes in consideration. He wasn’t bad looking, really, but there was something about him she didn’t like. Probably the way her brother was leaning into him.

“Armie Hammer. He’s Timmy’s new boyfriend.” Her dad said happily, and of all the things she’d expected him to say, that was definitely not it. She didn’t even know the Hammer’s had a son. And now he was in her house, supposedly  _dating_  her younger brother. Her eyes widen in surprise, and she can’t help but screech out “He’s  _what?!_ Since when? It was you first fucking day at school, Timothée!”

This really was not like him, sure Timmy might be naive to a fault, always willing to give people the benefit of the doubt, but he was rarely this reckless. And yes, mingling with a Hammer was definitely reckless, the Hammer’s were snakes, not to mention disgustingly conservative assholes, and there was no way in hell their son was going to be any different.

“Yeah, I know. And I happened to get lucky.” Timmy smiles at her, and she nearly throws up in her mouth. This was worse than she thought, Timmy had only known him for a few hours, but Armie Hammer had already taken her brother’s virginity?! Pauline was going to _kill_  him.

“YOU WHAT?!” she shouts. “Please, for the love of fucking god, tell me you did not sleep with him already.” Her words seem to catch Timmy off guard, and he sits up, looking confused.

“What? Not that that’s any of your business, but no?” The relief she feels in that moment is unlike anything else, it’s a wonder her legs didn’t give out from under her. “Why would you even ask that?” Timmy asks her, wrinkling his nose in confusion.

“You said you got lucky, what the fuck else was I supposed to think?!” She knows she’s sounding more than a little hysterical, and Timmy’s eyes go wide when the implication of his words dawns on him. And in that moment, Pauline realizes, he’s not wearing his sunglasses. There’s a stranger in the house, and he’s not wearing his sunglasses! He’s  _never_  comfortable enough around people – other than his family – to take off his sunglasses. Hell, it took his best friend back in New York  _years_  to get him to take them off, and Armie Hammer had managed it in  _hours?!_

“Oh god, no. Pauline!! I literally just meant what I said, I got lucky. I was lucky enough that Armie is in all of my classes, lucky enough that he wants to spend time with me, lucky enough that he likes me back. I just, got lucky. I didn’t,  _get_   _lucky_.” Timmy sounds more than a little frantic, and she knows in her soul that he’s telling the truth, the kid can’t lie to save his life. The way Armie Hammer is looking at him, it’s obvious he finds her brother endearing, but he’s a Hammer, and she doesn’t _trust_  him. He has to be working an angle, because if there is one thing she knows for sure, it’s that there is no way,  _no way in hell_ , his parents would be fine with their son being gay, not with their 1800’s attitude towards, well, everything.

She looks over at her parents, who are looking over at Timmy and Hammer with hearts in their eyes, she throws her hands up in frustration and snaps at them. “And you’re what, you’re just fine with this?!”

The way they just stare at her as if she’s grown a second head since the last time they saw her infuriates her almost more than their actual reply. Her mom just nods while her dad shrugs and says “Pretty much, yeah.” As if it was totally normal behavior for Timmy to be bringing home new boyfriends after only knowing them for a couple of hours.

She shakes her head and exclaims “What the fuck?!” before dropping into the first available chair. It’s like she literally walked into the twilight zone when she came home, Timmy is dating a Hammer, and her parents don’t even  _question_  it. Her mom, who is usually so protective of Timmy, that she once secretly followed him for an entire day, just because he’d asked to go to the mall with a friend, alone, and she’d assumed it was a date. And now, she’s just sitting there, perfectly fine with a stranger having his hands all over her son.

“Language, Pauline, please.” Her mom shakes her head, and Pauline has to bite her tongue in order not to actually hiss at her. “No, mom. How the fuck am I not supposed to curse when there’s a stranger in our house, a stranger Timmy only met today, and you’re suddenly all fine with it, calling him his boyfriend like that’s perfectly normal?! That’s, no, that’s, no way.” She turns to Hammer, glaring at him, and he better thank his fucking lucky stars for the fact that looks can’t kill, or he’d be dead right now.

“It is perfectly normal, though.” Her dad says sharply, and she quickly realizes her mistake, her words had come out sounding a lot more homophobic than she intended, but before she has a chance to apologize to Timmy for that, her dad continues. “Why shouldn’t your brother get to find a boyfriend on his first day of school? You did back in New York, remember? What’s so different about this?”

There are so many differences between those two situations that Pauline doesn’t even know where to begin, for one, she’d had a crush on Anwar since  _high school_ , he was a year older and graduated before she had a chance to even talk to him. But when they ended up at the same dance academy, she’d taken it as a sign, and gained the courage to ask him out, that first day. And he’d accepted, but they didn’t actually start calling themselves boyfriend and girlfriend until much later. And besides, Timmy wasn’t Pauline. He didn’t  _do_  stuff like this. Ever. And he was so fucking  _naive_ , he actually gave money to people begging for it on the street, thinking it would actually go to feed their hungry children and not fund the mafia or some shit like that. She loved him with all her heart, but he really wasn’t the best judge of character out there, and if their parents wouldn’t protect him from this Hammer leech, she would have to do it for them.

“ _Timmy_  is what’s different! He never knows what’s best for himself.” she reminds them, shaking her head at the fact that they seemed to just fucking forget about that. Her brother’s hurt voice coming from her right startles her, she almost forgot he was still there. “Because I’m blind, I must be a complete idiot? Is that what you’re saying?” Pauline looks over at his face, the pain her words had caused him obvious on his expressive face, and Hammer is glaring daggers at her, as if he has  _any fucking right_  to judge.

“No, Timmy, that’s not what I’m saying.” Pauline says soothingly. “You just have too much faith in people, is all.” She adds as an explanation. But it does nothing to ease the hurt on Timmy’s face, he just shakes his head and cuddles back into Hammer’s side.

“I’ve already had that conversation with Armie, dear.” Her mother tells her, smiling lovingly over at Hammer. “I trust him, your father trusts him, and more importantly, your brother really likes him. So please, just let it go, and be glad your brother has finally found someone who makes him happy.” She says the last part sternly, and Pauline wishes it was that fucking simple. If it were anyone else, well, she’d still be suspicious, just because Timmy is her little brother and it’s kind of in her job description to look after him, but the fact that it’s  _Armie Hammer,_ it just makes everything worse. Because she  _knows,_ there’s no way he’s anything other than bad news, and he’s obviously a really good shit talker and manipulator if the way he’d managed to already win over her parents is any indicator. Or more accurately, managed to win over her mother, her dad likes everyone, he’s a lot like Timmy in that way.

Pauline stands up, shaking her head at her parents. “No. Sorry, I don’t buy it.” She leaves the living room, running up the stairs and slamming the door to her bedroom. She hears Timmy and Hammer go up to Timmy’s room a little while later, cursing her mom to high heavens when she hears the door close behind them, why did she have to go all trusting  _now?!_

She keeps an ear out for the sounds of Hammer getting ready to leave, and she manages to corner him on the front porch. She looks up at him, looking ever bit as threatening as she possibly can. “You might have everyone else fooled, but I’m watching you, Hammer. And I promise you, if you hurt my brother, in any way? I will  _end_  you. And they’ll never find your body.  _Ever._ ” Of all the reactions, she never pictured Hammer  _smiling_  at her after she was done threatening him, not to mention smiling with approval.

“You know what, Pauline? If I ever do hurt Timmy, you have my permission to kill me. I’d deserve it.” He nods, and turns around, walking across the street to his house. Pauline stays on the porch watching after him as he goes, more than a little confused at their little interaction. She thought he’d laugh at her, maybe show his true colors since no one was around, but apparently he was sticking to his act. Or maybe it wasn’t an act? She sees Hammer wave at her before he enters his house, and she snarls back at him, oh no, it was definitely an act, and she’d prove it eventually.

 

Hammer spends every single day at their house from that day on. He eats breakfast with them in the morning, dinner with them in the evening, he does homework with Timmy in the living room and she can sometimes hear him reading books out loud for Timmy up in his room after dinner. He’s just  _always_  there. Pauline is sick to death of looking at his smug face, and it’s only been a fucking week, so the weekend getaway her parents had planned for them really couldn’t come at a better time.

They’re going to San Francisco, purely because her parents are massive Full House fans, they keep saying that’s not the reason, but it totally is. They pick Timmy up after school on Friday, and Pauline has to watch as her brother kisses Hammer goodbye and listen to her parents talk about how  _happy_  they are that Timmy has him. She keeps her mouth shut, simply because she doesn’t want to make the car ride more unbearable than it already is. She hates road trips, they’re only bearable when she’s the one driving, and her parents and their godawful music taste are nowhere in sight.

As she predicted, Timmy spends most of the trip whining about missing his boyfriend, telling their parents how unfair it is that he couldn’t just stay home when it’s not like he can _see_ anything of what they’re traveling there for anyway. And she’ll give him that, the kid is almost 18 years old, he should have been allowed to make the decision to stay home, but she’s also not so secretly pleased their parents forced him to come along, just because if he stayed at home, Hammer would have an entire weekend of unsupervised access to her brother. And there is no way he wouldn’t take advantage of that.

When her dad asks Timmy if anything exciting happened at school today, Timmy grins and says that Elizabeth came back from her suspension, and Pauline frowns, who the hell is  _Elizabeth_? And when Timmy goes on to say he thinks some girl named Sersh might have a crush on this Elizabeth person, she feels even more left out of the loop, who the fuck were all these people? Her parents seem to be all up to speed though, cause they just smile, laugh and aww at Timmy’s stories.

“Uh, who are these people? I’ve never heard their names in my life?” She says, confused, she absolutely  _hates_  being left out of things, she’s a notorious Facebook and Instagram stalker just for that fact alone, she  _needs_  to know  _everything_.

“Oh, they’re my new friends at school.” Timmy smiles happily. “Liz punched Nick in the face for us, and Sersh just decided we were her new bff’s.” he chuckles, and Pauline raises her eyebrow at him, she knows he can’t see it, but he’s surprisingly adept at accurately reading her silences, and sure enough. “I can hear your eyebrow raising, they’re good people, Pauline. Honestly. Armie is too, you really should give him a break.” She scoffs at that, she’ll give Hammer a break the day hell freezes over. Which would be, oh yeah, that’s right, never.

“Why did this Elizabeth chick even have to punch that guy in the first place, Timmy? What haven’t you told me?” She’s actually a little hurt, he used to tell her everything, and now just because she doesn’t approve of his choice of boyfriends, he’s going to exclude her from everything going on in his life?

“He used to be Armie’s best friend, but he didn’t take the news of Armie being gay and dating me very well, and Liz overheard him talking about doing something at lunch, so she and her squad of cheerleaders sat down at our table at lunch, and when he started walking over. Well, she jumped him, and punched him in the face and got suspended.” Timmy summarizes for her, and she just blinks at him.  _What the fuck?_  “What the fuck?!” She says, more than a little incredulous, and Timmy just shrugs.

“Mmyeah. The best part is that Liz actually bit him first, and he had to go get a tetanus shot, just because she’d misheard some phrase and thought it was get bit instead of hit.” Timmy laughs, and Pauline catches her dad’s eyes in the rear-view mirror, he winks at her, and she just shakes her head in amusement, whoever this Elizabeth is, she sounds like a good judge of character, she could stay. “Yeah, so she literally jumped him and  _bit_ him before her friend corrected her, and  _then_  she punched him in the face.” Timmy says, obviously impressed with his new friend.

“So she was just a random cheerleader who decided to protect you out of the goodness of her heart?” Pauline still doesn’t really understand why Elizabeth was so willing to go to bat for Timmy, since she didn’t actually know him at all.

“What? No. She’s Armie’s ex-girlfriend.” Timmy explains, and just like that, any respect Pauline had for this Elizabeth person flew right out the window. “Oh, right.” Her voice tinged with obvious disgust, and it’s Timmy’s turn to scoff. “Seriously Pauline, knock it off. He’s my  _boyfriend_ , that’s not going to change anytime soon, and especially not because you refuse to actually give him a chance to prove to you that he’s a good person.”

“A good person doesn’t ever have to prove it, Timmy.” She mainly says this to be annoying, because she knows on some level that Timmy is right, that she’s being unfair, judging Hammer purely based on his parents, but fuck it, none of that changes the fact that she doesn’t trust him and nothing she’s seen or heard this week has done anything to change that.

“You’re being a dick, and you know it.” Timmy snaps at her, putting his headphones on, and the sounds of The Weeknd’s latest album can be heard leaking out of them. She just rolls her eyes, and pulls up Instagram on her phone. She’s tried finding Hammer on there, several times, but either he doesn’t have an account or he’s one of those people who use a made up username instead of their actual name on there, because no matter what variants of Armie Hammer she searches, she can’t find him. She even tried searching for Captain Hammer, just in case he actually had a sense of humor, but that account didn’t belong to him either.

He does have a Facebook however, but it was set to private, and there was no fucking way she was going to send him a friend request. She almost asks to borrow Timmy’s phone, to use his Facebook profile to snoop on Hammer, when she remembers he doesn’t actually have any social media accounts. She’d made a Facebook for him a few years ago, but he never used it and made her delete it again a month later. Maybe her mom had added him? After all, he had her wrapped around his little finger, and they often joked about being best friends, she decides to go for it. “Mom, can I borrow your phone to check something real quick? My phone data is being annoying.” Her mom doesn’t even question it, just unlocks her phone and hands it to her without question, just a “Sure, honey.”

She clicks the Facebook icon, and goes to her mom’s friends list, and sure enough, there he was. Armie Hammer. She clicks on his profile, not really knowing what to expect, but since Timmy doesn’t have a Facebook of his own she knew that even if Hammer does have his profile set do being in a relationship, it wouldn’t say with who, and she was certain he would take advantage of that, to avoid telling people he was dating her brother. But, she was wrong, because his latest post is a picture of him and Timmy, captioned “Missing my boyfriend :(” She actually blinks in surprise, because she’d really not expected that. She smiles when she sees that her mom had already liked it, and left a comment saying that Timmy had been whining about missing him too, the entire car ride so far, and Hammer had responded with a cheeky “He better ;)” and another comment telling her to take good care of his boy. Her mom had liked both of those too.

She exits Facebook and gives her mom back her phone with a thank you, and pokes Timmy in the side, chuckling lightly at his startled cursing. “How many times have I told you not to do that, Pauline?  _God!_  I’m gonna have a heart attack one day.” Timmy puts his hand on his chest, letting out a deep breath, and Pauline snorts at his dramatics. “How the hell else am I supposed to get your attention when you’re being all broody with your headphones on? It’s not like you can hear a damn thing I’m trying to say to you anyway.” She says and Timmy just shrugs.

“Anyway, I just had a quick question, and then I’ll let you go back to murdering your ears with The Weeknd.” She pokes him in the side again, laughing at the way he squirms, she knows he’s extremely ticklish, and while she normally would totally use that against him, pretty much whenever, she lets him off the hook this time. And she can see the relief on his face when he realizes she has no intention of tickling him today.

“What did you want to know?” He asks, turning his head towards her, and she can see her reflection in his sunglasses.

“Does he tell people?” At the look of confusion on Timmy’s face, she adds, “Hammer.” She rolls her eyes, correcting herself, “I mean, Armie. Does he tell people that you’re his boyfriend?”

Timmy frowns, shaking his head like the answer to that question is obvious. “Yeah,  _everyone_  knows.”

Everyone, huh? Interesting. “Even his parents?” She asks, curious, wanting to know if they’re part of his everyone or not, and the way Timmy winces tells her everything she needs to know.

“No, he hasn’t told them yet. It’s uh – It’s complicated.”

“Sure it is.” She rolls her eyes. But to be fair, she wouldn’t have wanted to tell those assholes anything about being different either. So maybe she’d cut him some slack on that particular issue. Just this once.

 

When she comes home from her ballet lesson the Monday after their trip to San Francisco, Hammer’s wrist is in a brace and his hand looks, well, fucking painful as all hell, to be honest. His knuckles are scraped up and bruised, and two of his fingers are taped together, quite possibly broken. She stops in her tracks, where she was on her way to get the orange juice out of the fridge.

“The fuck happened to you?” She’s surprised at the fact that it comes out almost sounding worried. Was she worried? She didn’t think so, not about Hammer anyway, if anything she was worried about why whoever he punched deserved it, and if it meant her brother was safe at school or not.

“I, uh…” Hammer snorts, shaking his head in amusement. “I came out to my parents this weekend.” She blinks down at him in surprise, not having expected that, even a little bit. And she doesn’t like the look of defeat on his face, or the fact that him coming out to his parents left him with a broken hand. She knew they were assholes, and overly conservative, but she didn’t peg them as the physical abusive kind. But if they had broken his hand, she’d march right over there and break their faces. It didn’t matter that she still didn’t like Hammer, no one fucking deserved to have something like that happen to them just because of who they fall in love with. So if she had to kick some homophobic ass, she would, even on Hammer’s behalf.

“And they  _broke your hand_?!” She exclaims, she really really hoped he was going to say no, but she had a sinking feeling in her stomach that he wasn’t going to, only made worse when Timmy lays his hand on top of Hammer’s uninjured one, and she sees him give it a reassuring squeeze.

“No. No, they didn’t touch me.” He looks down at the text book in front of him like it’s the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen, before looking back up at her and smiling humorlessly. “I did this to myself.”

Whatever she had expected him to say, it was definitely not that, and she looks down at him with sympathy. She might not like him very much, or trust him, but the fact that he  _broke his own hand_ , after telling his parents he was gay, it was pretty telling in regards to their view on the whole thing, and she was still considering going over there to kick their asses. “I did it because they were shit talking Timmy, and if I hadn’t punched that wall, I would have -” He exhales sharply, clenching his fists, and instantly wincing with pain.

Shit talking Timmy. That’s why he did it, because his parents had been saying rude things about her brother. Not because of their views on his sexuality, but because of the way they talked about Timmy. She admires his restraint, because she would not have been able to control herself, and she’d have launched herself at the both of them, consequences be damned.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve any of that. No one does. And thank you, for sticking up for him.” She sends him a small smile, and he grins up at her, suddenly looking like all his Christmases came early.

“Does this mean you  _like_ me now?” He laughs, and she wrinkles her nose.

“Don’t push it, Hammer.” She says, walking over to the fridge, getting the OJ and pouring herself a glass. She can hear Timmy laughing as she’s about to walk up the stairs to her room, and she can’t help but smile, she always did love that sound, and she can’t deny it’s been happening a lot more frequently since he met Hammer, she’d give him that.

 

About a week later, Hammer shows up at their door in the morning in time for breakfast as usual, except it’s obvious he’s not feeling well. The way his eyes are slightly glassy and cheeks are flushed with the obvious signs of fever, not to mention the way he keeps squinting, as if the light was actually painful, a huge sign of a killer headache. And when he sneezes, letting out a groan of pain right after, she knows she’s right. He’s sick, and really should still be in bed, not standing here on their doorstep forcing himself to function.

“You’re sick.” She says, not framing it as a question, but he shakes his head anyway. Wincing again, and grabbing onto the doorway for support when the action obviously made him dizzy.

“Ab dot.” He protests, nose so stuffy his words make zero sense. “Sure, and you’re not sweating through your clothes either.” She points out, looking down at the growing sweat stains on his gray sweater.

“Look, Armie. You’re obviously not feeling well, and I’m sorry, but I’m not letting Timmy get into a car with you when you can’t even stand up properly.” She shakes her head at him. “I get that you made my mom a promise, but dude, come on. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’b dot godda led Tibby go to schood adone. Nod habbenin.” She admires his persistence, and the fact that he doesn’t want to leave Timmy alone, but he’s honestly no good to anyone in the state he’s in right now, the only place he should be, was in bed, asleep. And she tells him as much.

“Besides, he has Elizabeth and Sierra to protect him. He’s not gonna be alone.” She smiles, more than convinced she just won this argument. But Hammer just looks at her like she’s speaking gibberish.

“Who de fug is Siebba?” He asks, sounding more than a little confused through the congestion.

And it’s Pauline’s time to frown. “Your blonde Irish friend? Sierra? Isn’t that her name?” She could have sworn that’s what Timmy had said whenever he talked about his friends. Hammer laughs loudly, before breaking off into a coughing fit. A quite painful one at the sounds of things, oh yeah, he was definitely not going to school today. No fucking way. She’d call her mother on him if she had to.

“You bean Saoirse?” Hammer grins, and she shrugs. “Yes, her. Sierra, Saoirse, whatever, I was pretty close!”

“Doh, you beally beden’t” Hammer laughs, shaking his head and wincing again. “Ogay, mebbe I shouldn’d go to schood, teb Tibby I’b sobby?” And he looks so pitiful and defeated, with snot running down his nose, that she reaches out and lays a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I promise. In fact, you should text Elizabeth and Saoirse to tell them you’re not coming in today, so they know.” Armie gives her a pained smile, and nods, turning around and walking back to his house. She stands there watching him until he’s safely inside, just in case he had planned to pass out in the middle of the street or something. Not that she was worried about him, because she wasn’t, but she knew Timmy would be upset if anything were to happen to him, that’s all.

She goes upstairs and knocks on Timmy’s door, opening it at his “Come in!” Based on the smile on his face he was obviously expecting Armie. “Hey bro, so, looks like I will be the one driving you to school today, because I just had to send your boyfriend home.” Timmy turns towards her, confusion written all over his face. “Why? What happened? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, I promise, he’s fine. Or, well, he’s sick, but I doubt it’s anything serious. He just needs to sleep it off.” She thought she was being reassuring, but Timmy just frowns, looking more worried than he was before. “Are you sure he’s okay?” He chews on his bottom lip as he waits for Pauline to answer, and she smiles at him. “Yeah, from what I could see and hear, I think he just has a really bad cold. You know, the stuffy nose, the headache, the fever. But I’m sure he’ll be fine in a couple of days, you don’t have to worry, Timmy.”

“Yeah.” Timmy chuckles, shaking his head. “Easier said that done, that.” Pauline nods, she definitely remembers how worried she felt whenever her boyfriends got sick and there was nothing she could do to help, she always hated feeling helpless, and she knows Timmy is the exact same way.

The way he’d fought to get his life back to normal after his accident, she’d always admired that, and the way he’d broken down a little while after everything had settled down, telling her that losing his sight wasn’t even the worst part of it, it was the feeling of helplessness that came with it that was killing him. And since that day she had done everything in her power to make sure he never felt that helpless again, she studied braille with him, she gave him her savings to pay for a top of the line screen reader for his computer, she labeled all his vinyl covers with braille stickers so he’d be able to tell which ones which and she helped him practice walking with his cane. She did  _everything_  she could, but she couldn’t help him with this, and she  _hated_  it.

They eat breakfast with their parents as always, but there’s something missing, she can’t quite put her finger on what it is, until their dad asks Timmy where Armie is, and she realizes that he’s it, he’s what’s missing. When the fuck did she get so used to him always being there, that just eating breakfast with her family isn’t the same without him?

As she’s driving him to school, Timmy’s phone lets out a “New text message from: George McFly.” and Timmy hurries to get the phone out of his pocket. “Who the fuck is George McFly?” Pauline asks him before Timmy has the chance to voice activate his phone and tell it to read the message out loud. Timmy grins, and she can see him turning his head towards her in her peripheral vision.

“He’s Marty McFly’s dad.” Timmy chuckles, and she rolls her eyes, of course he had to go there, like he didn’t know exactly what she meant. “Don’t be a smart ass.” She takes her hand off the gear stick and pokes him in the side, he lets out a loud yelp and squirms in his seat trying to escape her reach. “Fine! Fine! I’ll tell you, just please don’t tickle me!” Timmy laughs breathlessly, the anticipation of the tickling almost worse than the actual thing, or so he’d told her in the past.

“It’s Armie.” A besotted smile spreads across Timmy’s face just at the mention of his boyfriend’s name, and Pauline rolls her eyes again, this was why she was single, you literally became so  _stupid_  when you were in love.

“And you have him saved as George McFly, because?” The choice of contact name still made zero sense to her, it wasn’t like it was a nickname, she would have known if that was the case, but their nicknames for each other tended to stay within the usual range of couple nicknames, like ‘babe’ ‘baby’ ‘honey’ and sometimes ‘sweetie’ or ‘sweet tea’ as Armie liked to call Timmy. So where this George McFly business came from she had no fucking idea. She knew the Back to the Future trilogy used to be Timmy’s favorite movies, back when he could still  _watch_  movies, but his favorite character had always been Marty, not his  _dad_.

Timmy smiles widely over at her, “He’s my density” He says happily, and she’s left feeling more confused than ever. “He what?” She’s stopped at a red light so she turns her head to look at him, and he laughs. She turns her eyes back on the road just as the light turns green, and she gets the car moving again.

“It’s an inside joke.” Timmy explains, like she hadn’t already worked that part out, she still didn’t understand why Marty McFly’s dad was involved though. “We have this thing about destiny.” Timmy smiles, and she can see him blushing slightly in the three seconds she lets herself look over at him before focusing back on the traffic.

“Alright then, that’s… Sweet?” She still doesn’t really understand it, but then in a way, it wasn’t for her to understand. It was a Timmy and Armie thing, a  _boyfriend_ thing. Timmy just laughs, nodding to himself. “Yeah, you kind of had to be there, I guess.”

She gets a text from Timmy during his lunch break that day, and before she reads it, she immediately assumes the worst. Armie wasn’t there to look after him, so something had happened. But no, everything was fine, and she breathes a sigh of relief at the same time as she shakes her head in amusement at what the text says.

< _Armie came to school just now, claims he’s feeling better, but I still can’t understand a word he’s saying. His fever does appear to have broken though. So I guess I don’t need you to pick me up after all. See you later, love you!_ >

That stubborn idiot, he just couldn’t stay away could he. It was almost endearing. But not really.

 

A little over a week later, Armie falls asleep on their couch when they’re watching a nature documentary on Netflix. Their parents are out on their monthly date night, so it’s just the three of them home, and Timmy asks her if she’s fine with Armie spending the night, because he doesn’t have the heart to wake him up and send him back home. She looks over at him, with his head pillowed on Timmy’s shoulder, and she smiles. “Yeah, he can stay. You can’t sit there all night though, I’ll help you move him into a better position.” Timmy smiles gratefully over in her direction. “Thank you.” He whispers.

After they’ve managed to maneuver Armie’s, quite frankly gigantic, body into lying on his side, without waking him in the process, she helps Timmy pull a blanket over him. And because she knows her brother, and there’s no way he’s gonna go up to bed to sleep with his boyfriend down here, she goes up to his room and gets his pillow and duvet, placing them on the other couch. “Thank you, Pauline. I really appreciate this.” Timmy whispers with a smile, when she helps him to get settled on the couch opposite Armie. “No problem, little brother. Sleep well now, yeah?” She kisses him wetly on the forehead just to watch him grimace, and chuckles to herself the entire way up to her room.

When she wakes up a couple of hours later, because she has to pee, she can hear voices coming from downstairs, and the smell of… French toast? She goes to the bathroom first, because she  _really_  needed to pee, and then she tiptoes down the stairs. When she gets to the living room, she sees that Timmy and Armie are no longer asleep on the couches, and she can hear their voices coming from the kitchen. She tiptoes over to the doorway and she can’t help but smile at what she sees.

Armie is standing in front of the stove, in just a t-shirt and boxer shorts, and Timmy is similarly dressed, sitting on the kitchen counter behind him. “This is stupid, Armie, come on, it’s like 4 AM!” Timmy laughs, and Armie just shrugs, looking back at him over his shoulder. “I don’t care what time it is, my boy wanted french toast, so now he’s getting french toast.” Armie flips the bread in the pan, turning around and walking over to Timmy, and Pauline quickly hides her body on the outside of the doorway to avoid being seen, barely poking her head through the opening.

“You’re insane.” Timmy chuckles, shaking his head. Armie smiles down at him and cups his cheeks, kissing him softly. “Nah, not insane, just in love.” Armie leans in and kisses Timmy again, and Pauline looks up at the ceiling, such fascinating things, ceilings. But then she smells something burning, and hears Timmy’s muffled laughing. “Babe? Pretty sure you just burnt the toast.” followed by Armie letting out a string of curses, quickly turning around and hastily pulling the pan away from the stove, scraping the slightly burnt toast onto the plates he’d put out earlier. “No, honestly, it’s cool. I totally meant to do that. Burnt edges, good for your singing voice.” Armie says, managing to stay serious for about ten seconds before bursting into laughter. “Oh man, sweet tea, I’m sorry. I’ll make new ones.” Timmy just shakes his head at him.

Pauline goes back to her bedroom, leaving them and their burnt toast alone. Hopefully they wouldn’t set off the fire alarm next time they got distracted.

 

Pauline is sitting on the couch reading a book a few days after the french toast incident, and Armie and Timmy are sitting at the dining room table doing their homework.

She actually borrowed the book from Armie last night, after overhearing him telling Timmy that he still wasn’t over the damn thing, and how he’d never had a book resonate with him quite that deeply. When she’d cleared her throat, making her presence known, Armie had smiled up at her from where he was lying on his stomach next to Timmy on his bed. “Pauline! Have you read it?” Armie asked her, and she raised an eyebrow at him. “Read what?”

“Call Me By Your Name, it’s a love story, set in Italy in the 80’s, it’s,  _fuck_ , it’s everything. It’s beautiful, but it hurts like a motherfucker. So have you? Read it, I mean?” When she shakes her head, Armie sits up. “Do you read braille?” He asks seriously, and once again she shakes her head. “No, I never did get the hang of it the same way Timmy did.” She smiles down at her brother, who’s lying on his back on the bed, fingers entangled with Armie’s, smiling contently with his eyes closed as he listens to them talking.

“Do you want to read it?” Armie looks over her with a questioning smile, and she smiles back at him, his enthusiasm, and obvious love for this book making her more than a little curious. “Yeah, why not, yeah.” She nods. She watches Armie’s face light up, and he leans down to kiss Timmy’s cheek gently, before untangling their fingers and standing up. “I have it at home, I’ll just run over and get it. I won’t be long.” And he’s out the door before she can even blink.

Timmy snorts from his position on the bed, leaning over on his side, propped up on his elbow. “Admit it.” He grins over at her. “You  _like_  him.”

“Eh.” Pauline shrugs. “I guess he’s tolerable.” Making Timmy laugh. “Sure, keep telling yourself that.” He says with a wink, or she thinks it was supposed to be a wink, but he’d never quite mastered that skill so it was really more of an exaggerated blink.

Armie is back in less than five minutes, barely even out of breath, it was probably the insane length of his legs, Pauline reasoned. He hands her the book with a smile. “You’re not gonna regret it.” He says, before shrugging and adding. “Well, you might regret it a little bit, but to quote Harry Potter, you’re gonna suffer, but you’ll be happy about it.”

She’s gotten to the part where Elio sits at his desk, trying to come up with something to write on a note for Oliver, when she hears Armie curse, and she puts her bookmark in before closing the book, looking over to where her brother and his boyfriend are sitting.

“Hey, Timmy, would you mind handing me my phone?” Armie says absentmindedly, most of his focus obviously on the math homework on the table in front of him. Timmy turns towards him in confusion. “What?” And Armie just nods, still focused on his homework. “Yeah, I just wanna check something on the calculator real quick, because I’m pretty sure I just fucked up, and it’s closer to you, so please?” And Timmy snorts loudly, Pauline nearly doing the exact same thing. “Armie, babe, blind, remember? I don’t know where your phone is.” Timmy says with a laugh, and Armie looks up at him, wide eyed. “Shit! I totally forgot.” Which only serves to make Timmy laugh even harder. “Only you, babe. Only you.” Timmy tilts his head up for a kiss, and Armie smiles at him before leaning in. Pauline smiles fondly over at them, before going back to her book.

She finishes it later that night, and when she’s done crying, or as done as she can be, she barges into Timmy’s room. Finding Armie sitting on the bed, reading Harry Potter out loud for Timmy, who sits next to him, with his head on his shoulder, both of them startling at the sound of the door hitting the wall.

“ _You!_ ” She points her finger at Armie, anger shining through in her voice. “You  _son of a bitch!_ ” Armie grins widely over at her, Timmy already chuckling. “You finished it?” Armie asks needlessly, as if he didn’t already know the answer to that question.

“Yes, I fucking finished it.  _The fuck_  was that ending? Who thought that was a good idea?!” She clenches her fists, feeling a single tear roll down her cheek. “I am going to fucking  _murder_  you, Armie.” She says, pointing her finger at Armie again, making him laugh.

“Hey, don’t blame me! At least I warned you it was going to be painful!” Armie puts his hands up in fake surrender, still laughing. “All your brother told me before I read it, was that it was beautiful. So I thought it had a happy ending. Imagine my pain, the emotional scars that will never heal because of his cruelty.” He places both hands over his chest in a dramatic manner, making her laugh in spite of herself.

“But it  _was_  beautiful!” Timmy defends himself, Armie and Pauline’s gaze meet and they roll their eyes at the same time, making them laugh. “Yes, it’s a beautiful story, but, it’s also painful as all fucking hell, Timmy. You kinda should have led with that.” Pauline says, shaking her head when her brother just shrugs.

She’d have liked to stay in Timmy’s room longer, discussing the book with them, but their dad knocks on the open door a short while later, telling them it was time for bed, so she leaves them alone to say goodbye, and goes to get ready for bed instead. Her heart still broken for Elio and Oliver, and she totally understands why Armie can’t seem to shake their story, she doesn’t think she’ll be able to for a long time either.

 

She comes home from her ballet class the following week to find her brother asleep on the couch with his head in Armie’s lap, an episode Peaky Blinders playing on the TV, muted, but with subtitles on. It’s obvious that despite the fact that she has a clear view of the couch from where she’s standing in the doorway, Armie hasn’t seen or heard her coming home, and since their parents are having dinner with some friends they won’t be back before late, so she uses the opportunity to just stand there and watch them for a while. She doesn’t know why, but she finds it endlessly fascinating watching the two of them when they think they’re alone, or in this case, when Armie thinks he’s alone with Timmy, since her brother was asleep.

She watches with a smile as Armie keeps stroking through Timmy’s hair as he watches the Shelby’s fuck shit up on the TV. His fingers are still taped together, and she smiles sadly at the memory of the look on Armie’s face when he’d told her what had happened, she didn’t even like him back then, but it was impossible to not feel bad for him, and she’s glad it seems to be healing well. She’d honestly gotten so used to seeing him with his wrist in that brace now, that it was going to be almost weird to see him without it when it came time for him to take it off. It wouldn’t be happening for another couple of weeks though, she only knew that because her mom had it circled on the calendar, because she’d made Armie promise her that she was going to be allowed to go with him.

Her thoughts come to a sudden halt when she realizes what she’d just been thinking.  _She didn’t even like him back then._  Back then. Did she like him now? She’d joked with Timmy the other day, saying Armie was only tolerable, but she lowkey did think she’d meant it, but apparently not? And that’s another thing, since  _when_  was he Armie? She’d always referred to him by his last name in her head, hadn’t she? Jesus Christ, she hadn’t even notice when she’d pulled that switch, so she has no idea when it happened. Fucking Armie Hammer, the bastard had gone and grown on her, and now she was going to be stuck with him, like a goddamn barnacle.

She plops down on the couch next to him, knowing Timmy could sleep through the fucking end of the world without waking up, grinning at Armie’s startled face when he realizes he’s no longer alone. “Jesus fucking… Where did you come from? Did you  _teleport_ home?!” Armie whispers, in an obvious attempt to not wake his boyfriend, and Pauline snorts. “You can talk normally, you know. That’s one thing you should know about my brother, when he’s asleep, he’s  _asleep_. It’s a fucking nightmare to get him to wake up for school.”

She watches Armie look down at his sleeping boyfriend with a disgustingly fond smile, the love he feels for her brother written all over his face, and her fears are confirmed. She actually  _likes_  that son of a bitch.

“Armie, I uh… I owe you an apology.” She says quietly, she fucking hates having to make apologies, but she’d acted like a fucking asshole towards him for so long, so if anyone deserves one, it’s Armie. He turns his head towards her, confused. “What makes you say that?”

She sighs, not even knowing where to fucking start. “Well, I’ve been behaving like a total bitch, for way too long, and as much as it pains me to say this, I actually do like you.”

“What? You like me? I really did it?” Armie grins, looking both incredibly happy and confused at the same time, Pauline would almost go as far as describing it as adorable. But just almost. “But, wait, what exactly did I do?” Armie frowns, and Pauline can’t help but laugh, because she doesn’t fucking know either. In a way he probably didn’t do anything, and it was just her needing to pull her head out of her ass and realize that he wasn’t his parents, turns out assholery wasn’t always genetic. Her laughter gets hysterical real fast, and she can’t seem to stop, every time she thinks she’s done, she looks over at Armie’s confused face and cracks up again.

When she’s finally managed to calm back down, she smiles softly at him, and Timmy, still asleep with his head in Armie’s lap, thank god he was a heavy sleeper. “Nothing, Armie. You didn’t  _do_  anything. I was just wrong about you, that’s all. You’re a good man, a kind soul, and I’m sorry it took me this long to see that. I’m really glad Timmy has you in his life, he’s never been as happy as when he’s with you. It’s like -”

“Like we’re destined to be together.” Armie finishes, looking down at Timmy with a smile, stroking his hair, and once again the love he feels for Timmy is written all over his face. She lets a smile grow on her face too, remembering what Timmy told her that one time in the car, about Armie and him having some kind of inside joke thing about destiny. And while she didn’t understand it then, she does now, so she nods, agreeing with him.

“Yeah. I can see that. The two of you, it was definitely destiny.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've never done the whole outsider pov thing before, but it was fun! And I hope it helped you understand just why Pauline was so rude to Armie in the last part. 
> 
> I'm having a lot of fun with this universe, and I hope you are too :)


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